Thanks
to everyone who supported the NO STV campaign and effort
in the May 12 provincial referendum on electoral systems!

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NEWS
RELEASE Tuesday May 12, 2009

NO
STV pleased and relieved that Single Transferable Vote proposal
defeated in May 12 provincial referendum

VANCOUVER
 NO STV, the group opposing the Single Transferable
Vote, is pleased and relieved that British Columbia voters
have rejected the STV proposal in the May 12 provincial
referendum on electoral systems.

As
of 11 pm Tuesday, the results stood at 61 per cent in favour
of maintaining the current First Past The Post system.

NO
STV said throughout this referendum campaign that the Single
Transferable Vote was a bad idea for British Columbia and
tonight voters agreed, Tieleman said. Our strategy
was to give voters as much information as possible about
the problems with STV and let them decide for themselves
 that worked.

Whether
the province continues with our current First Past The Post
electoral system or considers other alternatives, it is
clear that STV is no longer an option, Schreck said.

Shreck
said NO STV has no position as an organization on future
discussion of electoral reform but that some of its supporters
believe there are other systems better than either STV or
FPTP.

It
is now up to the provincial government and opposition to
listen to British Columbians and respond democratically
and openly to their views, he said.

NO
STV Vice-President Rick Dignard gave credit to British Columbians
for BC-STV for running a strong campaign and encouraging
public debate about our electoral process.

Regardless
of the rejection of STV, this referendum has energized discussion
of our democratic institutions and that can only be positive,
said Dignard, a former BC Citizens Assembly representative
for the Sunshine Coast who disagreed with the Assemblys
majority recommendation of STV in 2004.

NO
STVs other directors include former Social Credit
cabinet minister Bruce Strachan and Vision Vancouver city
councilor Andrea Reimer, a former Green Party Vancouver
school trustee.

Other
active members include former provincial deputy minister
Bob Plecas, former NDP cabinet minister Anne Edwards, former
Citizens Assembly member Jyoti Gill, Trinity Western University
political science professor John Redekop and business owner
Paul Gill.

On
May 12, 2009 Vote Against STV

On
May 12th British Columbians will vote on whether to change
how MLAs are elected. We are confident that after you
watch the short video explanation of how the Single Transferable
Vote count takes place - prepared by the BC Citizens Assembly
which recommended it - that you will be convinced to reject
STV on May 12!

Adoption
of BC-STV would merge the 85 single-MLA constituencies that
will be used in the 2009 election into 20 multiple-MLA electoral
areas with populations of 200,000 to over 300,000. With
STV's electoral areas it is possible to elect all the candidates
for an area from one community, leaving others with no effective
representation.

It
is easy to understand our current system where there is
one MLA to be elected and the winner is the candidate who
receives the most votes.

Supporters
of STV say voting is as simple as 1, 2, 3, but the numbers
are not separate votes. Two to seven MLAs would be elected
in each of the 20 areas, but you only get one vote, hence
the word single as the first word in STV. The numbers are
used differently for each voter in the complicated
counting rules in which fractions of some votes get
redistributed (transferred) but the voter doesn't control
the size of the fractions.

The
single transferable vote (STV) is used in Ireland, Malta,
Tasmania and a few municipalities. In elections for the
Australian senate 97% of voters cast a single "X"
in "above-the-line" voting for their party's slate;
that might not be called true STV. Many of the claims that
are made about STV cannot be demonstrated and frequently
depend on assumptions of how parties and voters would behave,
but they behave differently in Ireland, Malta and Tasmania.
Since there is no STV jurisdiction in the world that has
the land mass and rural / urban population differences that
B.C. does, there is no place you can go and see how STV
might work if it were adopted for BC.

Hypothetical
examples purport to demonstrate that BC-STV would give more
proportional election outcomes, helping small parties to
elect MLAs. In Malta where STV is used there have been four
occasions, including in 2008, when the party with the greatest
popular support won the fewest seats. In Ireland's 2007
election, Sein Fein won 6.9% of the vote and elected 4 TDs
while the Green Party won 4.7% of the vote and elected 6
TDs. Ireland's long governing party, Fianna Fail, won 41.6%
of the vote and elected 78 TDs (47.0%).

Those
who rank proportionality as important in an electoral system
frequently prefer mixed-member proportional systems (MMP).
When New Zealand changed its electoral system it first held
a nonbinding referendum asking whether their first past
the post system (FPTP) should be replaced and, if so, which
of four systems people preferred; MMP received 70% support,
STV only 17%. Since a majority wanted change, a second binding
referendum was held in 1993 between MMP and FPTP which resulted
in the adoption of MMP. British Columbians won't be given
the opportunity to vote on MMP, and STV is nothing like
it.

Flaws
in our political system will not disappear by using a hard
to understand system for electing our MLAs and adopting
STV will not get BC closer to the kind of proportional representation
enjoyed in Germany and New Zealand. Adopting BC-STV could
make politics worse than they are now.